Windsor Castle decision to charge locals for first time ‘wrong and misjudged’

Free entry was permitted for all visitors until 1992, when a fire destroyed 115 rooms and caused millions of pounds worth of damage. Afterwards, visitors were charged an entrance fee to help pay for years of restoration.

However, local residents were still allowed free entrance if they held a residents advantage card.

The RCT, which controls all royal residences, now plans to end two centuries of tradition by charging local residents £16.50 to enter the castle.

The decision, which will allow free entry for one child up to the age of 17 per paying adult, has faced backlash.

Julian Tisi, Windsor’s Lib-Dem parliamentary candidate, said: “Most Windsorians are proud to have the castle on our front doorstep and love the royal connection and it has always been the expectation that entrance to go in has been free.”

Local residents said that free entrance to the castle made up for the negative impacts of tourism in the town.

Paul Oatway, 60, a former Grenadier Guards sergeant, said: “For them to tell me I now have to pay to go in is an absolute disgrace.

“Especially in summer the town is packed full of coaches and cars rammed with tourists and the roads are shut twice a day for the changing of the guard but we put up with all that.